Free Tibet!

My photo is a bit outdated but its sentiment stands this year as last.

March 10 is the fiftieth anniversary of a failed uprising against the Chinese who annexed Tibet. The Dalai Lama and some of his followers have been homeless since.

Tibet is part of a world not greatly populated but no doubt endowed with many natural resources which is why China stole it in the first place.

China’s anti-religion, anti-God, anti-anything-not-Chinese, anti-tolerance communist regime is at its most brutal and at its most honest when not shielded by the world press from its tyranny especially when it comes to TIBET.

This recent self immolation of a Tibetan Buddhist monk is perhaps the start of troubles in the region.

Tibetan monk 'shot' while on fire

The monk, named Tapey, is said to have shouted slogans and waved a Tibetan flag, then doused himself with petrol and set himself alight.

Campaign groups said witnesses then saw Chinese police shoot the man.

The monk collapsed and was taken away by the police.

China's official Xinhua news agency confirmed a man had set himself on fire, saying he was taken to a hospital and treated for burns injuries. It made no mention of any gunshot wounds.

The protest began after more than 1,000 Tibetan Buddhist monks gathered at a temple in the town to celebrate the third day of the Tibetan new year.

It reminds me of what brought down the Diem Regime in Vietnam before JFK’s assassination and the US being dragged into a no-win possible war/police-action. It was the lowly Buddhists setting themselves on fire that brought world attention to a corrupt regime just before a coup.

Killing one's self as protest is kinda out my league of understanding especially when Buddhism would seem to address more passive, gentle ways as part of its belief system. But as we have seen in recent years, the extreme ends of any religion are not pleasant or palletable.

In any case, religious intolerance and suppression are the hallmark of this Chinese regime.

Buddhism is something that is different from country to country throughout Asia over and above its basic tenets. I do not know if the Buddhists in the Tibet area will rise up in mass and be slaughtered like in Burma in 2007 against that junta police state and puppet regime of China.

China with all its glitzy consumerism and capitalism on its east coast, it is still Mao and Joe Stalin in its interior.

Another silent tentacle of China reaches into the disputed region of Kashimer with China being one of the players in disputed territory with Pakistan and India and on the Tibet border.

Kashimer

No doubt while America slept or hung out as potatoes on a couch during the recent prosperity paid for by credit, China has moved in everywhere it chooses to go.

While I do not know where all this ends, I would approach the Tibetan Buddhists under the Dali Lama in a respect for foreign culture mode. I would if I were China grant several hundred square miles around the ancient Tibetan capital of Lhasa and give it self autonomy not unlike the Vatican. It is unlikely that China will ever give up the rich prize of Tibet as a whole.

Tolerance and good sense and respect might go a lot further than guns and armies.

The Wandering Jew - NO - The Wandering Catholic!

Suddenly, Bishop Richard Williamson's apology to who(m)ever is not good enough?

I think that he has done a great deal considering his limited - very limited historic matrix - half or three quarters of an apology is better than none.

Perhaps the front line hierarchy in the Armani clad red silk Cardinal and white Papal robes might consider opening their own personal hearts in a similar manner to the Jews and the Shoah as they suddenly are asking an aged catholic dinosaur to do!

Vatican rejects Holocaust-denying bishop's apology

Like for the survivors of the Shoah and Nazi Holocaust, the everyday grind of life goes on.

So too in the Catholic sect of Christianity, life goes on and here are some narrower or is it futuristic views of that vision?

Some collateral follow-up on I hope a lighter side to show all sorts of sides to a church in a constant state of flux, looking for a stable mission and or mission statement after Vatican II.

Rather than be considered as a person doing a witch hunt on Richard Williamson and his anit-Semitic views, he is a gift that keeps giving to me in terms of the tangents and the bits and pieces of the so-called Traditionalist movement in the RC church that I find in further research on the Internet.

I call it Medieval Revivalism as opposed to Traditionalist and or anti-Modernist, like Pius X, who was not saying anything correct in using the word Modern, pro-or-con, in their temporary selfish me comfort philosophy.

Apparently there are all sorts of break away groups in and out of papal favor and or approval - in and out of “union with Rome”.

An interesting article about two brothers who studied under Richard Williamson who in their youth got a full dose of vitriol against Jews and Women when they studied in a SSPX seminary.

Bishop's vexing beliefs have deep roots

Oppenheimer, the seminarian with the Jewish sounding name who was belittled by crazy Dick Williamson in the seminary appears briefly in one of these videos showing his small sect doing the Latin Mass thing. The Canons Regular of the New Jerusalem was founded none other than by Archbishop Raymond Burke, the next pope, the future “Pius XIII“ (?), now head of the Vatican Supreme Court.



In retrospect, the French video shows in an odd way how the exact rubrics of a Council of Trent (anti-Protestant) Tridentine (not a chewing gum) Latin Mass.



In a way, nostalgia for the Latin Mass fits into the original Modernist critique of devotional reflection as something close to conveniently looking into a mirror or a well, seeing ourselves and calling it God and or Jesus. (a Gnostic view?)

In a way, nostalgia for the Latin Mass is nothing more than liking your grandmom’s fudge brownies better than your mum’s. The physical requirements for a Latin mass are more like staged Opera different than the performance of rap music and or fast food at Mickey D’s as many have called the new mass etc.

All in all, with so many wanting its own particular approach to the divine in all these spoiled RC splinter groups merely confirms my belief in the ultimate success of the Protestant Reformation was in the desire for all to reach God in an easier fashion than previously allowed under the monolith of the medieval church.

To each, his own. God save our constitutionally guaranteed “religious liberty” in the USA.

God Bless us all - each and every one!

Witchcraft & Buggery @ Yale & Vatican ?

There is a lawsuit put out from the descendants of the Native American Warrior Geronimo regarding his bones on display in some frat house at Yale. If you saw the movie “The Good Shepard” you would have seen an initiation scene whereby a future head of the CIA was pissing over the balcony onto the pledges below. This particular frat house drinking club is famous for having had so many presidents, supreme court judges, senators, and captains of industry as lifetime members.

Geronimo’s Heirs Sue Secret Yale Society Over His Skull

Getting back to Geronimo and desecration of his grave in Oklahoma by the U.S.Army and his remains getting dumped in a basement at Yale - is it an Urban Legend?

The late Tony Hillerman, in his books set in and around the Navaho Reservation in Arizona, wrote about one of his books called “Talking God” in which he stated that "I wanted Americans to stop thinking of Navajos as primitive persons, to understand that they are sophisticated and complicated."

Of course Geronimo was Apache but the same standards I think apply when in that novel in the author's words “The first chapter was no problem at all. I have an urban wannabe Navaho send a Smithsonian official a box of her ancestor’s bones, dug up from an ancient Episcopal graveyard, for her to display with bones of his ancestors.”

Respect for other cultures, other religions begins with your own. All beliefs are local.

Perhaps the present curse on the U.S. economy is the result of a frat house prank at Yale a hundred years ago - that is if you are superstitious or prone to urban legends.

I hope Yale finally does do some overdue spring cleaning and officially or unofficially returns the bones of Geronimo to a treasured sacred and blessed Apache resting site.

This whole incident reminds me of a short visit I had to a hospital in NYC that had been founded by the legendary Saint Mother Cabrini. She and her order had founded dozens of schools, orphanages and hospitals to help the needs of immigrants around the turn of the last century. Unfortunately, that hospital is now out of business.

I wanted to visit Mother Cabrini’s shrine in Manhattan out of curiosity and respect for such a powerful Christian personality who had stood in our midst so close to us in time. I did some research and then I discovered that her body in a glass case is not a whole body. Apparently they removed her skull to the Vatican. Why? I don’t have a clue. It is one thing to chop some saint’s finger bone into 10,000 pieces of dust and display them as relics for adoration and or respect. But a whole skull? It conjures up the worst in my seeing or envisioning evil uses for the bones of a true saint.

This drinking out of Geronimo’s skull at beer bashes and God knows what they need Mother Cabrini’s skull for - it is all Medieval - and for lack of perhaps better words, stinks and or smells of witchcraft and buggery!

Desiderata by Max Ehrmann

-
No rest for the weary. My fishing trip got cancelled.

I ran into this inspriational piece - Desiderata (Latin -"for things desired")- in the late sixites. Somebody had hijacked it and was selling it in cards shops. It was on parchment paper and the author was listed as Anonymous with some nonsense about it being written in 1692.

The Author was Max Ehrmann and not Anonymous.



I looked up the one word I did not totally understand - "aridity" = "the quality of yielding nothing of value" from the Free Online Dictionary.

Gone Fishing

I am taking a break from this blog. Lent is as good a time as any to do that. Here are some past would be homilies and or inspirational writings related to this Christian season. They are based on a one year lectionary series. Perhaps I’ll will get to do First Sunday and Sixth Sunday in Lent next year - God willing.


Matt 15:21-28, Second Sunday in Lent

Luke 11:14-28, Third Sunday in Lent

John 6:1-15, Fourth Sunday in Lent

John 8:42-59, Fifth Sunday in Lent

Mark 16:1-8, Christ's Resurrection


God bless!

Secular Hymns for a Secular World

The basis for this is something light and secular.

I remember in the late sixties us young types wanted some modern music in the new English Mass. Something from the Beatles or “Bridge over Troubled Waters” by Simon and Garfunkel seemed an appropriate request to the masters of the stone house.

We were told that expression of the profane did not match the requirements of things appropriate to sing in a church. The music must be sacred and approved by the Vatican bureaucracy. So no real music got played in my high school chapel.

In a way that was good, why pretend. Lifting up the spirit of people with secular music sounded too much like the feared Protestantism still lurking about and in spite of pronouncements of Ecumenical boiler plate PR coming out of Vat II.

Going along with the idea of secular music, I ran into “You’ll never walk alone” sung at a public high school graduation I went to. No mention of God in the song from a Broadway musical but with a inspirational and or spiritual overtone. Quite legal under the First Amendment in a secular public school assembly.

Pushing along on this secular theme and secular songs, so why not label them “Secular Hymns”? It is a secular world and if you read a secular bible by Thomas Jefferson about the life of Jesus why not have some secular hymns to balance out the program.

Another of these no God mentioned songs is “You Raise me Up” listed below with lyrics and video.

In a rather unusual way of looking at the secular approach, you in a way go back to where the mention of “God” was too sacred a thing to utter. Perhaps in our secular world, the name and or word “God” is worn out in connotation and or common meaning.

Maybe by not mentioning God in songs or “Hymns” maybe we might come closer to the divine in inspirational type thought and music.

“You’ll Never Walk Alone”

When you walk through a storm hold your head up high,
And don't be afraid of the dark.
At the end of a storm is a golden sky
And the sweet silver song of a lark.

Walk on through the wind,
Walk on through the rain,
Tho' your dreams be tossed and blown.
Walk on, walk on with hope in your heart,
And you'll never walk alone,
You'll never walk alone!

(Music, Words) Rodgers and Hammerstein

"You Raise Me Up"

When I am down and, oh my soul, so weary;
When troubles come and my heart burdened be;
Then, I am still and wait here in the silence,
Until you come and sit awhile with me.

You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas;
I am strong, when I am on your shoulders;
You raise me up... To more than I can be.

There is no life - no life without its hunger;
Each restless heart beats so imperfectly;
But when you come and I am filled with wonder,
Sometimes, I think I glimpse eternity.

You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas;
I am strong, when I am on your shoulders;
You raise me up... To more than I can be.


(Words, Music) Brendan Graham, Rolf Lovland.

The Secular Bible ? by Thomas Jefferson

To change the subject matter back to more appropriate light and or secular matters.

I ran into a reference somewhere about this book some months ago. It is the so called Jefferson Bible or The Life and Morals of Jesus. It is conveniently on an Internet site without having to buy a dusty old copy of it.

Apparently Jefferson in his old age did a literal cut and paste with several copies of the New Testament, four gospels, and painted a line by line narrative of Jesus as a moral teacher. Good narrative flow of the story of Jesus but with no miracles, no resurrection etc.

The Jefferson Bible

Letter To Dr. Benjamin Rush.
Washington, April 21, 1803.

DEAR SIR,
In some of the delightful conversations with you in the evenings of 1798-99, and which served as an anodyne to the afflictions of the crisis through which our country was then laboring, the Christian religion was sometimes our topic; and I then promised you that one day or other I would give you my views of it. They are the result of a life of inquiry and reflection, and very different from that anti-Christian system imputed to me by those who know nothing of my opinions. To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed, but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished anyone to be: sincerely attached to his doctrines in preference to all others, ascribing to himself every human excellence, and believing he never claimed any other. At the short interval since these conversations, when I could justifiably abstract my mind from public affairs, the subject has been under my contemplation. But the more I considered it, the more it expanded beyond the measure of either my time or information. In the moment of my late departure from Monticello, I received from Dr. Priestley his little treatise of "Socrates and Jesus Compared." This being a section of the general view I had taken of the field, it became a subject of reflection while on the road and unoccupied otherwise. The result was, to arrange in my mind a syllabus or outline of such an estimate of the comparative merits of Christianity as I wished to see executed by someone of more leisure and information for the task than myself. This I now send you as the only discharge of my promise I can probably ever execute. And in confiding it to you, I know it will not be exposed to the malignant perversions of those who make every word from me a text for new misrepresentations and calumnies. I am moreover averse to the communication of my religious tenets to the public, because it would countenance the presumption of those who have endeavored to draw them before that tribunal, and to seduce public opinion to erect itself into that inquisition over the rights of conscience which the laws have so justly proscribed. It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others; or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own. It behooves him, too, in his own case, to give no example of concession, betraying the common right of independent opinion, by answering questions of faith which the laws have left between God and himself. Accept my affectionate salutations.

Th: Jefferson

This was a project that Jefferson had suggested to some of the great minds of his day but to which nobody else bothered to follow through on. In his old age, it was one of those things left on the "to do" list. I guess he needed a mental exercise to keep dementia away.

I have only read parts of it but pass it along to anyone interested who never heard of it or is curious about an abridged NT version as seen through the eyes and or imaginative brain workings of one of the founding fathers.

New Mick RC Archbishop in NYC - Tim Dolan

1,000 -

999 -

998 -

I am counting backwards. Not holding my breath.

997 -

996 -

995 -

Archbishop Timothy Dolan is being named as a replacement for the finally retiring Edward Cardinal Egan in the big apple.

994 -

993 -

992 -

It will perhaps be a breath of fresh air. Perhaps the paint on the walls of the Cathedral rectory has finally dried after nine long years and just as the good Cardinal Egan receives a well deserved retirement.

991 -

990 -

989 -

A young fellow I once worked with was a musician on the side. I guess he once got invited to an RC marriage ceremony as part of his gig. He made the remark that he would rather watch paint dry on a wall than ever go to one of those again. Perhaps not a nice comment. But definitely an honest one.

988 -

987 -

986 -

Egan's entrance to New York had to do with his recruiting middle aged men to the priesthood to replenish a diminishing supply. Of course with organizations like SSPX with about 350 priests in the world, it is easy to recruit third world priests to take a high paying US salary of a few hundred a week in a US parish and send the money back home to their starving relatives. (The issue of celibacy gets buried deeper and deeper within a spider's web of PR, BS, piss and corruption.)

985 -

984 -

983-

I did not like how Egan seemed to be walking down the central aisle of St Patrick's to claim his red prince's hat even before O'Connor's body got pushed out the door.

O'Connor was stiff as a board but he had a certain common touch. I almost tripped over him once as I existed a bus on Madison Avenue. I did not recognize him at first in his cassock and brown leather fedora. He seemed to be alone. No bodyguards. Egan on the other hand had an air about him that you would need an appointment to just look at his magnificence.

I am perhaps not being fair with the new guy. Have seen too, too much wet paint on the RC walls since Vatican II that still is not dry.

982 -

983 -

984 -

No doubt Archbishop Dolan will get his red hat and be promoted to Cardinal of what John Paul II called the "archdiocese of the world's capital". Lately with the financial meltdown, NYC is more like a collapsed tower of Babel than anything else.

983 -

982 -

981 -

There are many articles in the papers today about this new appointment. I will not list them. I think I am not the one to give a balanced assessment of a man I never heard of 24 hours ago. The best overall report is the NYT's one - boilerplate - obituary in the drawer quality - ready to pull and print at a moment's notice.

980 -

979 -

978 -

For some reason only Micks get to be the chief honcho in St. Pat's. I read that Dolan speaks Espanol. Good.

Other than that his predecessor in the post of archbishop of Milwaukee got caught doing something nasty that cost some sort of $450,000 settlement with the person who got the nasty done to them. But that has nothing to do with Tim. He raises a lot of money. That seems to be his number one ace in the hole that got him the job. That and downsizing everything in sight in the Milwaukee Archdiocese to settle lawsuits.

977 -

976 -

975 -

Counting backward. I have to wonder what is wrong with Timothy Dolan? Benedict XVI, an aged politician and bureaucrat seems in a hurry, a mortal hurry to pack the court like FDR or I should say the Church Hierarchy with as many weird choices for bishops as anybody desperately out of luck in Vegas - for his vision of a Medieval Revivalist RC church.

-974

-973

-972

Who knows? Maybe the Vatican might let a sane one slip through the cracks once and a while. Stranger things could happen. Miracles?

Welcome to NYC Father Tim, the media capital of the planet. There are no secrets here.

971 -

972 -

Etc.

Mark of Cain - R. Williamson SSPX

Bishop Richard Williamson of the Society of Saint Pius X is being kicked out of Argentina. Williamson with his Mark of Cain** on his forehead lied on his paperwork with his visa as to what his real role was in staying in Argentina etc. The very powerful and influential Jewish community in Argentina no doubt had some input and influence in the deportation of an undesirable alien from that country.
Argentina expels Catholic bishop who questions Holocaust

The way the financial crooks are coming out of the woodwork these days, one has to wonder if SSPX, based in Switzerland, seems more and more like some sort of money-laundering operation than an enterprise of God. Who has bankrolled them all these decades? I doubt Bishop Williamson soils his dainty hands with the everyday money operations of the business. He is perhaps just window dressing in case the casual street viewer wants to question the whole real back office operation of SSPX.

It is going to take Bishop Williamson many more weeks, months or years until he reconsiders his opinion on the Nazi Holocaust. (How long does it take to move a dozen Intaglio Presses in the back boiler room boys?)

I have recently read the good bishop’s review of the movie “Doubt” from his personal blog- Dinoscopus.
Church Godless

"Thus while the merely human drama is between two people, the real drama for Catholics with eyes to see is a whole Church collapsing for lack of God. Mother clings humanly to a decent discipline, but nothing in Merlyn Streep’s performance suggests that it is anchored in God. Still less anchored in God is the priest floating human love on doubt. The Church of 1964, as here portrayed to the life, was doomed."

In the way of pissing me off, this 15 minute of fame anti-christ like persona of bishop Richard Williamson has given a review of the Movie “Doubt” with Meryl Streep and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Not only that, the fcuk did a spoiler review and gave away the ending before I got a chance to see the freakin movie!
Doubt

Never the less, let my humble self do a review of the review. His review reveals so much about his reptilian Medieval Revivalist Church thinking. Somehow Meryl Streep is the good obedient female victim of the church. He can’t even mention Hoffman’s name in the review. What a pig? No doubt the names of priests accused of child molestation over the years in all church organizations become nameless and best not to remember names or even numbers in tragedies progressed by the Church.

The Holocaust was numbers and tragedy but that is something else.

Anyway, if the priest in Doubt gets promoted to a rich parish in 1964, he probably was innocent of being a pervert. Nancy Pelosi rich parishes keep heterosexual priests with mistresses on the side. If the priest merely got transferred to some new parish forming in the burbs in 1964, there is a good chance he is guilty of child abuse.

I have done some research on the subject in my native Philadelphia and the court records at least seem to indicate that the bad priests got farmed out to young suburban parishes before they got farmed out to Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. In any case, the bishop doing the assignments in those days of glory, of God, that Bishop Williamson calls 1964, no doubt they the bishops did not remember names on transfer forms.

Names are a funny things. Names on transfer forms, names on evacuation orders, names on work camp rosters, names on gas chamber terminations - names, numbers they are all conveniently forgotten by some especially the types in charge who prefer not to remember nasty things from the past.

No mystery. No beauty. Just the coldness of space dust in your pompous bloodless, soulless life in the Medievalist Revival Church post as bishop of whatever land.

This poor sad man does not see God in 1964 or after Vatican II. A high school religion teacher, a priest, of mine had great hope in Vatican II. That teacher told us, taught us, that where there is life, there is God.

Up until the very last breathes of political prisoners, victims and Jews, millions of them - God existed in them before they died so tragically and after too.

**( Mark of Cain - “am I my brother’s keeper?” )

Pieces of Dreams - Revisited

There is this movie Pieces of Dreams 1970 with Robert Forster. He plays a young priest who falls in love with Lauren Hutton. The movie is based on the book “The Wine and the Music” by William E Barrett who also wrote “Lilies of the Field” and the “Left Hand of God”.

The title of the movie shares the title of a Michel Legrand song “Pieces of Dreams” sung at the end of the film by the legendary Miss Peggy Lee. I never could find this song listed on any of Peggy’s records. It was I believe the best sung version ever of what is now considered a Michel Legrand classic. The next best singer on the planet for this song is Shirley Bassey.

Anyway, it was a small budget production and it did not have a lot of Hollywood polish. A lot of shots on location in New Mexico gave it a feeling which was not the standard Hollywood product in 1970. It is a good average watchable flick which I guess in today's terms you could say has what is called an independent production feeling to it in terms of originality and quality.

Forgive my Critique. These days everybody is a pundit or a critic. Perhaps it a substitute for a two way conversation on the Internet. I believe it did not have a large budget because in those days Hollywood never spent a lot on so called controversial films which in 1970 this film might have been categorized. Hollywood in its prime never made controversial movies though it did touch upon controversial subjects like Anti-Semitism as in Gentleman’s Agreement with Gregory Peck in 1947.

Hollywood made these much older limited audience appeal movies in black and white instead of color not expecting much of a return on investment.

There is a lot of soul searching in “Pieces of Dreams” by the main character Father Gergory Lind about what he wants, to be a servant of God or get laid etc.

In the framework of the time, Father Gregory Lind did not have many options. Many European priests would have just had Lauren Hutton on the side as a mistress and continued to give outward lip service to God and the Church.

This film touches in me some of the raw nerves that Vatican II left behind by ripping the scab off the Medieval Catholic church and shoving the wound briefly, very briefly, into the cleansing light of day.

There is a scene whereby Gregory visits his local bishop to be allowed to be released from his vows. The Bishop played beautifully by the veteran actor Will Geer appeals to Father Gregory Lind and says something, things like celibacy would change in time. I think back to that scene probably filmed forty years ago and the Vatican has still not delivered on changes that the laity would feel comfortable with like married priests.

The reason I remember these lines is because in the raw period after Vatican II when priests and nuns jumped ship in droves and the laity were still a little shell shocked, most of us accepted the concept that change in the Church was a good thing.

There was an unstated and undelivered promise about the celibacy thing to the laity back then - first the English Mass, then we will talk about other subjects. Back then nobody even thought of women as priests. Add that to a lot of items the laity thought were coming down the pike for putting up with John XXIII's opening up the windows and throwing the filled to the brim chamber pots of the Pius X Medievalists out the window. To this day the emergency group therapy sessions in the Vatican are about - No there were no babies thrown out - only chamber pots during Vatiican II.

Well anyway, the quid pro quo of the laity putting up with change and looking for a brighter church never happened. They are selling churches out from under the feet of the people of God these days.

I think that the lines of the lyrics of the song Pieces of Dreams best fit the conundrum of a church in search of a mission or a soul since Vatican II.

Little boy lost
In search of little boy found
You go a wondering,
wandering,
stumbling, tumbling
'Round... 'round...
When will you find
What's on the tip of your mind
Why are you blind
To all you ever would
Never would
Really are
Nearly are
Little boy false
In search of little boy true
Will you be ever done
Traveling
Always unraveling
You ... you
Running away
Could lead you farther astray
And as for fishing in streams
For pieces of dreams
Those pieces will never fit
What is the sense of it
Little boy blue
Don't let your
little sheep roam
It's time come blow your horn
Meet the morn
Look and see
Can you be
Far from home?

…

P.S. Lauren Hutton was hot back then. She still is!

Nancy Pelosi in Rome - WTF!

I see that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is going into the den of the great white father for a visit. A lot of the great women haters of history club in the RC church would like to tie her to a stack and kill her because she serves her flaming liberal constituency in order to serve in the U.S. Congress. In reality if she pushed the boiler plate propaganda of the male only RC hierarchy she would be not be electable. You can’t have it both ways boys! You win or you lose in American politics.

No doubt she got a mild lecture from his holiness about the contradiction of her being a good Catholic and in advocating free choice for the people in her bailiwick.

Some want pope to scold pro-choice Pelosi

There were some rumblings in the media in September about bringing the hammer down on VP candidate Joe Biden, a practicing Roman Catholic, but not a lobotomized card carrying Catholic anti-abortion rhetorical zombie. I envisioned his being dissed by a card carrying hypocrite from the Republican Party in his full nine yards of red silk slamming Biden in an attempt to destroy Obama.

I was envisioning the same stab in the back that Democratic Presidential Candidate John Kerry got from unsolicited Archbishop Raymond Burke who wanders eternally around the RC hierarchical map with no Cardinal wanting him planted in their back yard. Then in 2004, Archbishop Burke took it upon himself among all the Cardinals, Archbishops and Bishops in the United States to say that if Senator John Kerry were to go to mass in his religious bailiwick of the Saint Louis Missouri Archdiocese, that John Kerry, a proven Vietnam War hero would be denied communion because of his pro-abortion stance. No doubt Ray got great applause in his secret chapter of the “he-man women haters club” for his saying, asserting the boiler plate anti-abortion spiel.

This past year, Archbishop Burke got promoted to Rome before he got a chance to screw Joe Biden the same way he screwed John Kerry on the Abortion code word issue thing. Four more years of RC approval of the Republicans in American power would surely have destroyed the planet and or caused its suicide.

I have to wander sometimes that if the about 17-20% of the American birth rate that does not happen because of Abortion, what is the Roman Catholic’s Hierarchy’s real opinion or where is the GOP’s checkbook for women who do bring unwanted children into the world. I see that a woman, who loves children in California, brought eight children into the world recently and is in hiding because she believes in life and many in the public are making death threats against her.

There is no balanced or hopeful middle ground in this inane abortion conundrum. Pot bellied religious bureaucrats, who have no known children, fiddle with political code word issues not unlike Nero while the world burns with real life decisions about life, money, comfort, love and respect for the theory of life. Churches close. Schools close. Hospitals close. It is definitely a wide stance issue.


Soon to be Cardinal and I predict next pope Raymond Burke continues to assert RC boiler plate PR releases.

Archbishop Burke says bishops' document helped Obama campaign

In an exclusive interview with LifeSite News, Archbishop Raymond Burke has charged that the US bishops' document on voting responsibilities, Faithful Citizenship, contributed to the electoral victory of Barack Obama in last year's presidential contest. Archbishop Burke-- who was Archbishop of St. Louis before he was called to Rome to head the Church's top canonical court-- said that the bishops' statement "led to confusion" by suggesting that Catholic voters might, in some circumstances, be justified in voting for a pro-abortion candidate. Those circumstances did not apply, the American prelate said, and mentioning them only clouded a straightforward moral issue. Archbishop Burke argues that the lack of clear moral guidance from the hierarchy was a contributing factor in Obama's victory, because many Catholic voters supported the Democratic candidate.

Perhaps there is hope in that some of the sane hierarchy in the RC church that do not want the right wing “Burkies” showing up without an offical invitation in their designated religious bailiwicks.

UK Cardinal says Burke can’t say Latin Mass at Westminster Cathedral

According to London’s Daily Telegraph, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor has told a Catholic organization to rescind its invitation to former St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke to celebrate the traditional Latin Mass at London’s Westminster Cathedral in June.
On his Holy Smoke blog, the Telegraph’s Damian Thompson says the Latin Mass Society had invited Burke - now the head of the Vatican’s supreme court - to be the main celebrant at its annual Latin Mass at the famous cathedral. Canon law says only the bishop of a diocese - in this case Murphy-O’Connor - can invite another bishop to celebrate Mass at a church in his diocese.

And so it goes. Life and the rotation of the planet.

SSPX - More Catholic than the Pope

Bishop sees problems in restoring ties to Vatican

Monsignor Bernard Fellay, one of four traditionalist Roman Catholic bishops rehabilitated by Pope Benedict XVI, says he expects it will difficult to set aside differences over doctrinal issues.

Fellay — who heads the Swiss-based Society of Pius X, which the pope is trying to bring back into the Vatican's fold — said in an interview published Monday that he already has indicated his willingness to enter into talks in a "positive spirit."…

Fellay said it would be difficult to reach doctrinal consensus with the pope.

"Certainly one has the impression that he is near us on the question of the liturgy," he said. "On the other hand, he is deeply attached to the new things of Vatican II."

Fellay said there was too much ambiguity in the conclusions of the groundbreaking, 1962-65 ecumenical council.

The media gives away free space for PR handouts from obscure Christian cults. In this case because Bishop Williamson of SSPX became controversial, and who has been pushed aside within SSPX as a result of his unrealistic views of the Nazi Holocaust. Williamson’s views have elevated the opinions of his peers in SSPX like Monsignor Fellay. That is the way things work these days in the media.

So why is a tiny schismatic cult trying so desperately to get back on the main track of RCism? It is cold out there in schismatic land. Not everyone wants to practice life in the dead Latin language liturgy which a monarch/general/dictator Charlemagne imposed twelve hundred years ago. God, these cultists are so entrenched and comfortable in the middle ages. The thought of electric lights and flush toilets in a house must make these anti-modernists “Traditionalists” pee their cassocks on a regular basis. Where is Jesus in their equation of reality?

Perhaps Benedict XVI is in a rush to heal a schism in his short term as pope and is willing to do anything, to overlook anything to appear to do something in his authoritarian role.

So too in minute gestures of respect to this most peripheral minor dust spec of the Christian faith in a posse/gang like SSPX who are still living in a time warp and think that there still is a viable RC church out there to negotiate with. The RC is only a shell of its former self no thanks to the Lefebvre gang among others.

Monsignor Fellay first followed a lunatic that did not follow church teachings. Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, the schismatic founder of the Society of Saint Pius X was still denouncing the French Revolution of 1789 as some kind of conspiracy of Free Masonry and free thinkers when Vatican II started. Archbishop Marcel would only have been comfortable in his own skin if he had been an absolute bishop under an absolute monarch. Unfortunately the twentieth century and or Disney land Paris could not provide him with the kicks he sought in life.

This whole SSPX society worships a pope who hated anything modern. These anti-modern priests appear to like running water and anti-biotics and are trying to be more Catholic than the Pope as the old expression goes. What part of the modern age turns you off boys?

Pope Pius X was a Marian Pope, whose encyclical Ad Diem Illum expresses his desire through Mary to renew all things in Christ, which he had defined as his motto in his first encyclical. Wikipedia

In other words, Jesus needs a Mary brand bacon wrapping before it (He) can be consumed by the public. In other words, more of the same old clouded Medieval way to avoid realistic dialogue with Luther and the other reformers. Christ must be approached only through the saints and through the authority of a military tiered authoritarian church.

Vatican I, Pius X, Vatican II - it is long uphill battle to get the RC church to recognize and feel comfortable with the modern age or at least the modern age as ushered in by Martin Luther and others since 1517 A.D..

As we go forward into the 21st Century as Christians and must establish dialogue with Islam and Atheism, it is the Protestant Christ that is very nearly human and divine that can be presented to the world as a means of expressing divine communication and in an ongoing communion with the brotherhood and sisterhood of the human race across the planet.

For Sale - RC Cemeteries - Cheap ?

I received an article sent to me about how archeologists were searching for “mass graves containing hundreds of unbaptized babies and infants buried by the Catholic Church” in Belfast, Ireland. The person who had sent me the article was curious about the many and perhaps bizarre rules of the operating Catholic Church in the past.

Archeologists search for unbaptized babies' grave

The article made it sound like some Catholic families wanted closure as to infants who got dumped outside the gates of the catholic cemetery in unconsecrated ground. Considering the state of decay and the time frame being decades, it is unlikely that any identifiable remains will be uncovered. The real concern I think was that the Catholic cemetery in Belfast wanted some property lines redrawn regarding national conservancy land nearby.

Cemeteries are the only thing left that the RC church has not sold in a big way in their fire sale of schools, churches, hospitals. Their going out of business sale, hiding assets, give a few coins to the Altar Boy Fund is the preoccupation of an aged and literally dying hierarchy. Pass the oxygen mask boys!

This, before the façade of the dead RC church comes crashing down. Nobody, including the paid for media, will be able to mask the presence of and or stench of the big RC corpse rotting away in front of them. My real concern and I do not have prophetic vision is that "What will happen to Christianity?" with the RC church as a permanent side show going out of business permanently?

What does Christianity look like in fifty years with the seeming rise of Islam and the seeming death of the RC church right before our present eyes. What is left of the RC faith? Does it merely look and act like Wall Street after all the assets of the faithful have been completely plundered. These assets are gone.

These now depleted cash assets and more importantly the human faithful assets, are not being taught in Catholc Educaton that used to be taught from kindergarten to University, who used to pray in great beautiful churches and who were once healed in many many Catholic hospitals.

Of course this cemetery story is in Europe. I doubt any American RC cemeteries are likely to be sold for condo foundations but one never knows, does one? This Belfast cemetery story is perhaps a probe or pilot project for the hierarchy to learn more about cemetery property laws in various countries.

Far fetched? Crazy? Kelo vs. City of New London 2005, Supreme Court precedent, that states that private development that creates jobs, taxes and turns around urban decay can be mandated through eminent domain sanctioned by located authorities.

I think the American landscape is ripe in these tragic economic times and with trillions of taxpayers' money more than ready willing and able to replant grandmom and granddad not just in RC cemeteries but secular ones as well in prime downtown real estate locations clogged with those old time cemetery things.

The times they are a changing. Just what American cities need, a new taxpayer financed Football or Baseball Stadium to replace the obsolete ten year old one down the road - and built where some family members had recently been pushing up daisies.

Putting this secular grubby business aside and my cynical spin on things, let us look at the concept of baptism as an entrance requirement to the after life.

Infants in the past who did not make it to a physical baptism missed the boat. Tough luck etc. They could not go to heaven and they could not go to Purgatory or Hell either. Hell and Purgatory were special places that a sinner doing bad things got to go to in the after life. Heaven was for the goody goodies, the ones with a trillion bought and or earned indulgences and or good works and of course having been baptized.

These infants mentioned above could not be buried in the family plot in the consecrated ground of the RC cemetery. Where did their souls go after dying? Let’s invent a mythical place called Limbo to put the kiddies. Anyway, Limbo got decommissioned back around two years ago. Why. I don’t know why. Were they still refusing burial to unbaptized infants? I don’t think so. As far as I know non-catholics can be buried with their spouses and children in Catholic cemeteries these days in the USA.

And where do these unwanted children from the past go if they have been suddenly evicted from the Limbo property? Apparently, theologians say that infants, innocent and unbaptized just get automatically drawn into the Beatific circle of God and his plan for salvation for humankind. This is I think a free “get out of Limbo” card just like the free “get out of hell” card passed out after Vatican II regarding the relaxing of the No Meat on Friday rule.

But don’t hold your breath, Limbo may come back like No Meat on Friday or some other peculiar medieval or superstitious beliefs or rituals like indulgences. With the present regime in Rome and administrating to a very, very, very small practicing flock in Rome, anything is possible considering the fact that the media treats the Bishop of Rome like a rock star. An easy media sound bite – bling!

It is too bad that when the present aged monarch slips and slides over things like anti-Semitism, he seems rather unfocused. Perhaps he is more comfortable counting gelt than souls. That, and figuring out a way to get a bigger cut of all the RC cemetery property on the planet. Somebody has to support RC church institutions, the few that are still left unsold and standing.

P.S. read the fine print on your RC cemetery plot contracts just to be on the safe side of heaven. Don’t be disappointed at the last possible moment.

Luke 18:31-43 - Quinquagesima (Feb. 22, 2009)

Do you know yourself? Simple question, isn't it? When you leave here today will you know who you are and in terms of your relation to friends, family, the community?

So much of Jesus' ministry in those ancient times was in trying to make people see things differently. A business psychologist in college once stated the definition of what it takes to be great to us, his students.

He stated that a great person makes the whole world turn around and look at the world differently. Great men and or great women move the world. They change the world. My teacher cited the examples of Einstein, Gandhi, Darwin, Buddha and of course Jesus to name a few.

It is a crowded field for great people. The world is changed not every decade these days but every day. I detest the term 24/7 because it connotes business every hour of the day, seven days a week. When do we rest from the labors of our life? Even God rested on the seventh day.

Indeed, the secular nature of our culture pushes out, eradicates or even discounts the value of things that some of us can remember. Half a century ago, there was little or no business done on a Sunday. Sunday was for family and a rest from the everyday workaday world and a day for church. God is not that important anymore to the secular world. God and or Jesus have to be in the secular rat race of life everyday to get any recognition or respect. It is a sad commentary on our times.

I look back at the past and am not all that nostalgic for it. Rather, I am looking down the road to better days ahead. What we here today are doing is recognizing the greatness of God and his Son and his mission to earth. How great thou art. How great thou art indeed.

In the opening reading from Samuel, it would appear that God was not happy with King Saul and he is telling Samuel to go to Bethlehem and seek out a son of Jesse. Samuel is to anoint this son of Jesse with oil. God is looking for a new ruler of his chosen people. And going back to my opening question - do you know yourself? - I think that perhaps God saw beyond Saul's great abilities to be a king and warrior. Perhaps he saw into the heart of the man and knew that Saul was not fit for the job or was losing his grip.

Time for change is coming down the road. Why not let a few people starting with the prophet Samuel know that change was coming in the form of King David. King David would one day lay the foundation stones of the first temple not by building the temple itself but by choosing Jerusalem as a permanent Jewish city and a permanent home for the wandering Ark of the Covenant. His son Solomon built the temple. David picked its location.

Jesus, perhaps in his temporary role as prophet, is standing there in front of his apostles and telling them what is about to happen to him. He is to be taken by gentiles, mocked and killed. And in three days he will rise. Their eyes glaze over. They do not see what he sees. No doubt Jesus might have been thinking this about his Apostles - Do you know yourself? Do you know who you are? Do you really know who I am?

Communication then was as difficult as it can be today. There is the theme of the great man to make others see the world differently. Besides predicting the future, Jesus is trying to make people to stop looking at outward appearances. He is in so many ways trying to appeal to people to look inside to what their hearts tell them. He is in so many ways trying to tell people to change religious beliefs from rules and outward appearances and obsolete rituals.

Saint Paul in first Corinthians thirteen is evaluating perhaps his own person and the human condition as well. It is difficult to turn around and to see ourselves differently. But in Jesus, in his teachings, in his grace from on high, we can change our lives in so many ways. Go thy way and sin no more. Recognize our faults, our sins, ask forgiveness, receive forgiveness. Change the way the world sees us. Move the world! Be a great new person.

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels - and have not love, I am nothing.

Jesus is traveling and there are the crowds following him. The quiet of the country side is disturbed. Crowds, noise, talking, shouting. The circus has come to town? No. Just Jesus. Just Jesus?! More like the most truly greatest show on earth that has ever been or ever will be this side of eternity.

A blind man hears the hubbub and asks who is in town? To which they reply Jesus of Nazareth. The man is excited. Jesus' reputation has preceded him. Like Samuel looking to anoint a new up and coming king, most of the prophets of the old testament talk in some futuristic way of this man and his mission, of this special anointed by God man, of this Jesus.

The blind man is shouting. He wants attention. He wants something from Jesus. The blind man who cannot see shouts and anoints Jesus with a proper title - "Jesus, Son of David". Finally the blind man gets the direct attention of Jesus. And Jesus says something remarkable as far as I am concerned. He asks the blind man what he wants from Jesus.

"What do you want me to do for you?"

It should be obvious. The blind man wants to see. Right? Or does he? Do you know yourself? Does the blind man know himself? Jesus does not assume that the blind man wants to see. So he asks. The blind man might want forgiveness for some wretched sins from his past. He might have wanted something for his child or grandchild.

Jesus looks the blind man in the eyes and asks. What do you want me to do for you? The blind man asks to be able to see. Jesus restores his sight with the words "You are healed because you believed".

Do you know yourself? Do others know you? What do they see? What do you feel? What is inside of you? What do you want from Jesus? These are fair questions. Only you have the answers. Faith can cure you. Restore you. Change the way you look and see the world.

From Jesus today I want the whole world to turn around and look first at themselves and to see themselves inside and out in a different manner. I want you to be great people. I want you as Christians to change the world. That is what Jesus wants from each and every one of us. Not too much to ask. Is it?

How great thou art! How great thou art!


For more homilies: http://www.amazon.com/Lenten-Homilies-Lectionary-Cycle-ebook/dp/B0077QUHA8/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1329408622&sr=1-3

Benedict's March Back to Medievalism ?

I ran into two articles on the web yesterday that in some ways disturb my faith in the R.C. Church's ability to deal with reality and what appears to me to be fissures in the dam of fatih with what appears to be an about face on the 20th century and its seemingly march back to Medievalism. Just when you thought that the R.C. was going to be user friendly, it invents or is it reinvents some weird sized batteries to use on their brand names and products.

I suppose my title for this had to do with Nicholas Blincoe's article in the Guardian UK.

Don't get medieval on me, Holy Father

"Pope Benedict's decision to reach out to the ultra-conservative Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) has caused consternation in Israel, where They are asking why the Pope would want to rehabilitate a cult of Holocaust revisionists. The controversy will almost certainly set back the chances any deal on the status of Catholicism within Israel – a deal affecting the lives of tens of thousands of Palestinian Catholics and a vast property portfolio in Israel and occupied Palestine.

This scandal affects me intimately. I have a home in Bethlehem, where my Palestinian Catholic wife is the Director of the save the city campaign, Open Bethlehem. Ten years ago, the Israelis razed one of Bethlehem's two forests to build the settlement of Har Homa. The last remaining forest is the property of the church. As the Israelis build an eighteen foot concrete wall around its circumference, our nature treks and family picnics have become a memory. So it is understandable if I am more concerned with the workings of the Pope's mind than most Anglicans. But I also lean towards the pro-Catholic wing of my church. I want to see the church reunited. The question is, what kind of church? The Pope's decision to reach out to SSPX is part of a wider reform programme. So what kind of a church do the Benedictine reforms envisage?"

A whole set of diplomatic soldiers have dominoed into the ground because of the recent Bishop Williamson scandal. Mr Blincoe is of course hoping for some political and religious relief for Catholics under Israeli occupation. And I, being green, was offended by the treating of forests in Isreal like Arabs. (sarcasm)

The thing that really put a bug up my butt was the NYT times article below about the resurrection of Indulgences for fun and profit in the R.C. Church. Of course I am all for the Latin Mass on a small scale as nostalgia for the old farts. Now I would imagine the indulgnce thing is on a small scale for the older Catholics as well.

For Catholics, a Door to Absolution Is Reopened

"In recent months, dioceses around the world have been offering Catholics a spiritual benefit that fell out of favor decades ago — the indulgence, a sort of amnesty from punishment in the afterlife — and reminding them of the church’s clout in mitigating the wages of sin.

The fact that many Catholics under 50 have never sought one, and never heard of indulgences except in high school European history (Martin Luther denounced the selling of them in 1517 while igniting the Protestant Reformation), simply makes their reintroduction more urgent among church leaders bent on restoring fading traditions of penance in what they see as a self-satisfied world.

Why are we bringing it back?” asked Bishop Nicholas A. DiMarzio of Brooklyn, who has embraced the move. “Because there is sin in the world.” "

If you have to go to confession to qualify for an indulgence, what was confession good for? Let us not get back into the semantics that caused centuries of bloodshed after the start of the Reformation. (But) How many times does Jesus have to die to save you etc??? How many indulgenges does it take to get into that heaven thingy?

Indulgences and other Relevant Fees

"I also remember being told by the nuns that civil marriage doesn’t count in the eyes of the Church. The eyes of God is always another matter.

Fast forward two or three decades. I want to get married. I don’t have any religious affiliation. We both were raised in the R.C. church and we want to do the R.C. marriage thing. It seemed like the right thing to do.

Bad idea. People with limited options only have limited prospects.

Then you go to the local rectory and the local priest, well passed retirement age, gives us the long spiel about how my wife’s previous civil marriage and civil divorce were not recognized by the church. Okay.

Next. The clerics in the Vatican have to examine your request to be readmitted into holy mother church. Time, paperwork, research, official approval. Bottom line - six months minimum to wait and a $2,500 donation to the church. Clerks have to eat too. Excuse me. Could you repeat that?"

The thing that keeps me Lutheran Catholic are these little odd touches like the resurrecting of Indulgences.

What next Joe? Let's resurrect the boogie man saints, you know the ones decommissioned and discarded after that nasty Vatican council thingy. Among those saints decommissioned were a whole bunch of saints supposedly sent to their eternal reward for being dissed or done in by Jews. There is a back door to anti-Semitism and I believe that Bishop Williamson is emblematic of that.

What next? Burning heretics at the stake your holiness? Rhetorical perhaps but this fool wants to know.

Luke 8:4-15, Sexigesima (Feb.15, 2009)

There is a lot of energy and motion mentioned in the opening reading of Isaiah 55:12

"So you will go out with joy and be led out in peace.
The mountains and hills will burst into song before you,
And all the trees in the fields will clap their hands." NCV

All this energy and after the preceding verse:

"The same thing is true of the words I speak.
They will not return to me empty.
They will make the things that I want to happen,
and they succeed in doing what I send them out to do." NCV

Lots of energy. Lots of joy. There is lots of expectation from God, the author of the universe. There is lots of expectation for God for the words that his Son Jesus is to deliver to the crowds in his preaching.

In Psalm 84 lines like "My whole being wants to be with the living God", "...Happy are those whose strength comes from you...", "...and everyone meets with God in Jerusalem,,,", - these lines reflect more energy, more joy, and more expectation. You want to see and touch God in his Temple as it stood in Jesus' time. We all want to see and meet God and Jesus at the end of our days. By why wait? Stand up. Sing. Shout praise. Stir the heart to joy. Stir the mind to song. Be a part of the oneness of God and his creation.

We are stirred. In Hebrews 4:13 "God's word is alive and working and is sharper than a double edged sword..."

Think about it. God's word is alive and it has been since the beginning of time - before the beginning of time - "in the beginning there was the word. The word was with God, and the word was God." And his word and his world will have no end. We as Christians will have no end. That is the promise and the expectation.

Alleluia!

Then there in Luke 8 starting with verse four Jesus starts to tell his parable of a farmer planting seeds. These are ancient times and there are no machines to help you plant seeds. You throw them every which way. In a way it is a gamble. You have expectations of a bumper crop to feed your family and excess bounty to sell in town. There are infinite possibilities as to what can happen when we sow the seeds of a crop full of this human expectation.

Life is what it is. A certain portion of seeds fall on the road and are lost under foot. A certain portion is consumed by birds. Still others fall on rock, start to grow but die for lack of ground water. Others fall among weeds and cannot compete for the first place prize of survival.

And many more of the seeds fall on good ground. The temperature, ground and moisture conditions promise the expectation to produce a good, large, sturdy harvest of grain. Everyone will eat in the coming year.

Think about it though. Everyday that farmer must be worrying if the good conditions will continue. Will rain come? Just enough -not too much. Will the temperature stay balanced - not too hot - not too cold - and so on and so forth? The harvest is ready. The crops are cut and stored. Many worries disappear as the bounty of God's earth brings forth the continuation of the human family.

We have heard this parable before. Here in this particular Gospel, Jesus adds some commentary and tells everyone what the parable means. Maybe he had been preaching to too many farmers or day laborers who were tired at the end of a long hard back breaking day. Rather than tax their mental processes, he helps the parable along.

In fact here in the Gospel of Luke I hear the echo of some other Gospel, not an official gospel, one of those piles of parchment that were found in the middle of the last century in Egypt. These documents, though much later in date than the four Gospels, have many lines and references that a seasoned reader of the Good News might recognize. What I hear in Luke is Jesus telling everyone to listen. He wants them to hear. Any of you listening, you better have two good ears, and learn.

The simple story of seeds and the expectation of good crops illustrate how many of us have promise, great expectations in life and in the salvation of our souls.

Everybody here. Any of you listening? You better have two good ears. Hear me.

Oh how Jesus must have been sad on the days he preached to a bunch of tired and or slow brick walls also known as farmers, country dwellers, itinerates, travelers. How he must have wondered how his expectations to save the world would fall on deaf ears and the blind among the people who with a little common sense or an elevated sense of humanity would, if they could, stand on the mountaintop so to speak and see the promised land of humankinds' salvation.

The crowd can take his, Jesus' word away with them from that meeting that day. They can embrace the word at first and then let it fall away. They can forget it. They can give lip service to it. They can let their worries about crops and other human matters cloud out the message and the word of God along their road of life. And there are those who "like the seed that falls on good ground ...hear God's teaching with good, honest hearts and obey it and patiently produce good fruit."

Let those of you with two good ears - listen - understand - learn.

All this - this structure - many structures - many churches - cathedrals - many Christian communities all have sprouted out of seeds that have fallen on good ground. Our hope, our faith, our expectations have carried the seed along, found a good home for it, nurtured it and in good time we have seen the good fruit of our labors here as we expect to see the fruits of a life lived in Christian faith and harmony be carried over into the next world.

It is a good crop. It is a bumper crop. It all depends on each and every one of us.

That, and with God's blessings, the people of God endure in this life and the next.

Amen.

So-called bishop Richard Williamson - Heretic?

“…Bishop Richard Williamson of the ultra-conservative Society of St. Pius X told Germany's Der Spiegel magazine that based on research he did in the 1980s, he became convinced of his views about the Holocaust, which historians say resulted in the deaths of six million Jews.

Williamson is quoted by Der Spiegel as saying he would re-examine "everything again and look at the evidence." However, he said he won't be visiting the site of the Auschwitz concentration camp.

"Since I see that there are many honest and intelligent people who think differently, I must look again at the historical evidence," the British bishop was quoted as saying.

"It is about historical evidence, not about emotions," he added, according to the report.

"And if I find this evidence, I will correct myself. But that will take time."…

("Holocaust-denying bishop promises to review evidence" CBC.Com Feb.7,2009)

In the worst sort of Cafeteria Catholicism, so-called bishop Richard Williamson is taking his good old pedantic time in filing his nails and telling the Pope to chill while he reviews his beliefs on the Shoah or Jewish Holocaust.

He refuses to go to Auschwitz. There are living witnesses and he wants to drag out his old hate magazines and books to review his views that do not reflect reality or the modern age.

I feel sorry for this man who in his closed minded way thinks that Pius XII is still Pope and the Holocaust can be swept under the rug of Catholic, Christian Europe.

I read once in a book by the Traditionalist and ex-Jesuit Malachi Martin how Pius XII in the grand tradition of obedience to the Pope used to insist that bishops and cardinals get down on their hands and knees and kiss his foot in submission to his grand role as Head of the Roman Catholic Church.

If the traditionalists, sedevacantists insist that Pius XII was a real pope, what is Benedict XVI ? If you accept release from excommunication, it was by order of the Pope. Why aren’t you groveling before the Bishop of Rome and recanting your gloriously ignorant view of history???

If this were 70 A.D., 70 C.E. and Jerusalem was in ashes and thousands of Jews were in chains, would bishop Williamson if he were an early Christian scholar, would he write a gospel based on eyewitnesses to Christ or would he pull out his research, his scrolls and review what this Jew Jesus supposedly said or did. Then pick and choose. Probably!

It was the Jews in chains that built the Coliseum in Rome and brought Judaism and early Christianity to Rome in a big way. No Jews. No Jesus. No Christianity.

Jesus was real. Jesus was a Jew. Jesus’ first mission was to the Jews.

The secondary mission to the gentiles came later under the Apostle Paul and other gentiles. What came later after Jerusalem is less Jesus and more strange than it was human - kind of like you Richard Williamson.

I believe that this recent disgraceful episode is ordained by God to expose this so-called bishop's belief system, to bring it out of the shadows of ignorance and into the light of day and reason.

Get real. Get a life. Get a soul!

The New Ethics vs. The Classic Ethics

The standards of conduct that we grow up with, that we learn from our family and community, that we embrace could be called moral values or ethics - "ethics" as “a theory or system of moral values” as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary.

In his autobiography, In Memory Yet Green, Isaac Asimov described how his father, an atheist, would not steal, not because it had a moral value, but because his father did not want his peers and his community to label him as a thief. Pride, respect, and social interface count for a lot as the glue that holds our secular society together.

I am thinking of scales for early 21st century thinking in America and perhaps the global world too in general.

First, I am thinking of human scales, the size of a house, the height of a tree, the relationship of man to his environment.

Next, I am thinking American and or global business and thinking that CEOs make hundreds of times the wages of the average American worker. That if you grow up in rich burbs, and you get educated in Ivy League comfort and rise up the corporate ladder, you have never known or can know what average Americans or average wages or street scale ethics might be. You are in whole different league from the rest of the majority of the realm of mere mortal beings.

A recent number of secular things hit me from the daily media assault on my senses that stuck to the wall of my consciousness.

One has to do with $50 million dollar corporate jets for failed executives at failed financial institutions and paid for by taxpayer’s money. The other has to do with $18 billion dollars of commissions and or bonuses being paid out by failed executives in failed financial institutions and paid for by taxpayer’s money.

At one point in time, there were reality checks on executives at large corporations. Reality checks? The stock holders might object to your questionable expenditures.

Stockholders? Thirty seconds on the stock exchange of a municipal pension plan invested for those critical thirty seconds and then sold for a profit or loss thirty seconds later – those stockholders I do not believe knew that they had these assets.

Those nanosecond stockholders perhaps did not know that they had responsibilities as stockholders and they did not exercise their options of oversight to the corporate system. And if not the stockholders, than ethics would dictate…

Do I sound like some nineteenth century school master or boring country itinerate preacher? YES!

Reality check, stockholders, investor, ethics? Do some of these words sound like they are from a Latin Bible and you cannot read Latin?

There are an awful lot of untouched, unrefined, under-defined, misunderstood touch points – sound bite clichés – words –concepts -that roll off the lips of the divine Public Relations talking head.

What am I talking about?

Too much of the communication in the hardened artery media is archaic, charmed and sounds too much like a good snake oil sales pitch of half or a whole century ago. Upon examination, our ways of doing business and government do not reflect reality and or human scales.

Enough said. In the months and years ahead, I pray that our national government gets a life, scales back and learns to spend and tax along the simplest and most efficient human scales possible.

As for American business, if you have to teach a course in college in ethnics, then you probably don’t have any to begin with. That is not my original idea. I believe I read in once in connection to something said by some British philosopher. Correct me and or tell me the right quotation please.

The new ethics of failed economies, private and government, are nothing new. They are part of human nature. Prudence dictates that future endeavors in business and government takes a logical and semi-regulated approach to everything to counterbalance the ruthlessness and lawlessness now decaying in the streets – Wall Street and Main Street – in America – fossils of the recent age of no ethics.

The new ethics of the past generation is like the New Coke; forget it – a bad product from visualization, inception all the way up to hyped and forced onto the public introduction.

I want the classic drink and the classic form of ethics, old fashioned, and scaled to things human and average.

Gerhard Wagner - no friend of Humanity!

Gerhard Wagner is no friend of humanity in my humble opinion. He is it would appear to be a highly thought of German speaking crony of the Pope.

This is the best you can find for management Joe???

"The Vatican yesterday announced that Gerhard Wagner has been appointed as auxiliary bishop in Linz, Austria.

Wagner has served as the pastor of a church in the Austrian town of Windischgarsten since 1988, and received a doctorate in theology from the Gregorian Pontifical University in Rome.

In 2005, the 54-year-old was quoted in a parish newsletter as saying he was convinced that the death and destruction caused by Katrina that year was "divine retribution" for New Orleans' permissive sexual attitudes and tolerance of homosexuality.

Kath.Net, a Catholic news agency in Austria, said the newsletter quoted Wagner as saying that Katrina had destroyed not only nightclubs and brothels in New Orleans but also abortion clinics.

He first attracted international attention in 2001 when he described JK Rowling's best-selling Harry Potter novels as "satanism" and warned against the magical spells and formulas used in thenovels." Feb1,2009, Guardian Uk World, Mark Tran

It would appear that a reckless, irresponsible and or senile Benedict XVI administration is right on the mark in appointing Gerhard Wagner as Bishop of Linz a week after rehabilitating the accommodated Jew Hater Bishop Richard Williamson.

It would appear that Gerhard is no friend of humanity. I took the above photo from the Internet listed as victims of Hurricane Katrina for Gerhard’s viewing pleasure. Gerhard is no doubt a good and obedient Catholic. The quote below is from the bible for Gerhard to read if he cares to translate.

Matthew 25:41-46 (New International Version)

41"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'

44"They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?'

45"He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'

46"Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."

Keep up the good work Joe, Gerhard and Richard. I hear the vacancy sign in Hell is coming down due to your booked in advance reservations.

God loves the fool. In this case, I claim that title. Somebody has to play court jester and or Christian around these incompetent, cold, distant, uncaring senior management types of the RC church. The Emperor is butt ass naked and people are starting to talk!

God bless all the victims of Hurricane Katrina! Without exception!!

Jesus loves them all !!!

Matt 20:1-16, Septuagesima (Feb.,8, 2009)

I remember today’s gospel reading from my youth. It is a simple story. The man goes out and hires day laborers. He goes out early and promises a day’s wages to the first who come to labor and harvest in his vineyard. The man goes out later, finds idle men and tells them to join his harvest. He will do right by them when he pays them at the end of the day. It sounds like he will work out an hourly amount to equal their labor. At the end of the day he finds a few more idle men standing around and they join in the harvest but for little more than an hour.

It’s the end of the day. It is time to pay everybody and wrap things up. I have an idea about what the economy of first century Judea was about. The story is about coins. It is about measuring labor in terms of a metal coin and not in barter. No bushels of wheat for your labor or sheep but a coin. For many of these day laborers, the one coin promised will pay for bread and cheese for a family for a day or two.

I dare say, considering that way Judea got sophisticated, with first the Greeks and then the Romans dominating the culture, money had replaced barter. The tax man he comes around and he wants coins. Copper. Silver. Gold. I am certain that land owners could deliver as barter an acre or two of wheat to the tax collector’s grain house. The common man without land, he needs money. He needs money everyday to eat. He needs money for the tax man too.

The coins, the sophistication, the change in society makes a difference in how new generations see their obligations. I dare say, somebody like Jesus and his older brothers stopped helping out in the carpenter’s shop to go out and do day labor at harvest time. What for? The coins - to give the coins to the head of the household for taxes. The price of keeping big brother, big government and the tax collector out of your life was the same then as it is now. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Well anyway, I cannot read into the mind of the master of the vineyard in this story. He pays all his workers the same wage, one coin, whether they have worked twelve hours or one hour. Of course I have thought that maybe those who have labored all day got a little tired about midday and picked fewer and fewer grapes. That maybe those hired at midday did as much work in half a day, coming in well rested, as those who labored all day. But paying a day’s wages for an hour’s work, that sounds unfair and perhaps it is even charity. The owner of the field states that he can do what he wants with his money. So true.

Of course this is a parable and Jesus is trying to teach a lesson. He goes into a farming community. He tells a farming story. He has their attention and then he tries to kick the story up a notch or two into the realm of spiritual understanding. Smart guy, this Jesus fellow.

In life you have to do certain things that can be measured. Measured in this Earth. “Man is the measure of all things” to quote an ancient philosopher.

You have to do certain things that can only be measured in heaven. Measured by God. There are things we cannot measure but God does – our faith, our hope, our love. God gives us grace as an invitation to sit down and communicate with the Divine.

God invites us into his spiritual vineyard. For many of us, he measures all that we do. And maybe for others, he measures some of what they do in life. Like some who only show up once or twice at church in one’s lifetime or who have an epiphany on one’s death bed – who realize all the nasty things that one has done in one’s life – and asking quite selfishly for forgiveness of those things human that were not divine in a not well lived life.

And sadly, reflecting and regretting, but knowing there in the end of life, things of the true human heart – of love – of caring – of having faith – of finally hearing the owner of the vineyard telling us to make a little or even a great effort to get right with God.

I have known some people who do not know God -- non-believers. Some turn away from faith – some have never had the opportunity to understand or embrace faith. Atheists breed atheists you know. I know of such a person. A child of atheist parents. This person when I was acquainted was very unfair and very unscrupulous in their dealings with others. That, if I approached them to explain my faith, my beliefs, that person would put their ignorance of God into a poetic or a philosophical frame of reference. They told me that death and what happens passed death is the grand and ultimate mystery of life.

No mystery to me. If I have cheated or stolen from other people, if I have victimized others, I believe I will be judged accordingly to my deeds before the throne of God with Jesus Christ sitting right up there on the Big Guy’s right hand side. A place of honor.

Any why is Jesus there? You know the answer to that. He earned it. He earned it for his caring enough for you and for me and a trillion others throughout the ages. He earned it by becoming a sacrifice on the altar of God – by dying on the cross and by dying – to give up all his mystical powers bestowed on him at birth and in ages before his birth, by doing his duty, by surrendering his total being to the will of God.

Jesus is no con artist. Not like some of us. Many of us. You cannot fake your way into heaven. God gives us the means. We are all asked to labor in God’s vineyards. Some of us give it our all. And still some of us try as hard as we can. Still others – picking grapes – dropping grapes – get in other people’s way as they strive to do the great labor of God which is truly on this earth to do.

The bottom line of all this is that salvation has tremendous value. Salvation is salvation. What is it worth to you?

God chooses what he wants to do in his own time and in his own way – and most importantly of all – he does reach out a hand to each and every one of us.

All our labors in the vineyard of life are equal in the eyes of God – in the eyes of God we are all his children. We may whine for many things like the Hebrews in the desert with Moses as mentioned in the Exodus passage earlier. We whine for water in the desert of life – we can be difficult children at times – but Moses struck the rock at God’s command and waters rushed forth for them and ultimately for us to drink.

Those grapes we have picked in life are for the spiritual wine that is to be made in heaven and shared around the table along with the bread of Our Lord’s Supper.

Come. Labor. Be glad of toil and of faith. Know that the rewards not received here on earth continue into heaven. We are saved by our labor but also and more importantly by labor done at the bidding of the author of life and the universe.

To thee we pray. God be praised.